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November 26, 2012

Russian Navy deploys 6 warships off Gaza coast

Russian warships have dropped anchor off the coast of Gaza in the case that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict escalates, a Russian Navy Command source told Voice of Russia.
The Russian Navy continuously monitors the situation and studies possible options for evacuating Russians, the source said.

The move mirrors what the U.S. did last week when it sent three warships to the coast of Israel to help Americans looking to get out of Israel.

The detachment of combat ships from the Black Sea Fleet include the Guards missile cruiser Moskva, the patrol ship Smetliviy, large landing ships Novocherkassk and Saratov, the sea tug MB-304 and the big sea tanker Ivan Bubnov.

An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect on Wednesday. Since then a couple dozen rockets have flown into Israel and Israeli soldiers have killed one person and injured around 15 others near the border in Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces hit more than 1,500 targets during the eight-day Pillar of Cloud offensive. The conflict claimed the lives of 166 Palestinian and wounded more than 1200 while six Israeli died and dozens were wounded from rockets fired from Gaza.